Criminal law: Man faces second trial for murdering his wife

By Maya Driver on August 17, 2011 12:22 PM

Despite being previously cleared of the charge of murdering his wife, a businessman from Elgin, Scotland, is to face a retrial in October.

Nat Fraser was originally convicted of murder at a trial at Edinburgh High Court. He was issued a 25-year prison sentence in 2003 and served eight years of it, all the while appealing against the ruling.

After eight years, Mr Fraser's conviction was quashed when the UK Supreme Court ruled that Mr Fraser had suffered a miscarriage of justice.

But Crown prosecutors applied to make Mr Fraser attend a retrial and served an indictment on him, ordering him to appear at the High Court in Glasgow.

Mr Fraser has remained incarcerated throughout the process.

He is accused of murdering his wife in 1998 after learning that she consulted a solicitor about divorcing him and what kind of settlement she might obtain.

New charges brought against him allege that Mr Fraser strangled his wife or killed her by some other unknown method. He then dismembered and burned her body, removing her teeth and jewellery and disposed the remains in an unknown location.

Crown prosecutors also allege that Mr Fraser removed some money, children's clothing and a coat from his family's home on the same day of the murder and that on 7 May 1998, he returned Mrs Fraser's wedding, engagement and eternity rings in the house.

Mr Fraser is also alleged to have asked a colleague to destroy a car he had previously bought by burning, crushing and being taken for scrap.

Further allegations will be heard in court that on previous occasions, Mr Fraser had assaulted his wife, including one time in 1987 while she was pregnant.

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